SIREN SATELLITE

                          By ARTHUR K. BARNES

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                 Thrilling Wonder Stories Winter 1946.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]




                               CHAPTER I

                         _Ill-Starred Voyage_


Gerry Carlyle draped her very lovely form over the
functionally-designed Plastair and nibbled moodily at a long, bronze
curl. She had just discovered how vulnerable she was and, like all
important public figures who happen to find themselves in such a
situation, she was annoyed.

That she was important, no one could deny. Gerry Carlyle was perhaps
the most famous woman on Earth. She was beautiful. She was rich. And
she was amazingly successful in a profession so rigorous and exacting
that not one man in a thousand would dare face the dangers and
hardships and excitement that she faced almost daily.

Queen of the space-rovers, in her mighty ship, _The Ark_, this slim
girl covered nearly the entire Solar System in her quest for exotic
and weird life-forms to be returned alive for the edification and
astonishment of the public at the London Interplanetary Zoo. Her name
was a byword, and she was respected and loved throughout the System for
her courage, as well as her femininity.

And yet, for all this, Gerry Carlyle was very vulnerable in one regard.
Like all champions, she couldn't pass up a dare or a challenge, no
matter what its nature. She had to take on all comers, and she had just
realized that fact.

"The nerve of that fellow!" she muttered, then looked up in annoyance
at her fiancé, Tommy Strike. "You're none too sympathetic, either. What
are you pacing around for?"

Strike was medium tall, and darkly good-looking in a rugged sort of
way. He grinned tolerantly at her, the grin that always made her heart
stumble.

"Just trying out the new flooring," he said.

The pilot room and main corridors of _The Ark_ had just been refloored
with zincal, the new metal, plastic, air bubble combination which gave
under the foot like an expensive rug, but which never showed signs of
wear.

Gerry pouted.

"Well, you might show a little interest," she said. "After all, you're
second in command around here." But Gerry was not the pouting kind, so
the pout was not very successful.

"You've been mumbling to yourself for the past half hour," Tommy Strike
pointed out. "How do you expect me to know what it's all about? If you
care to commence at the commencement, in words of one syllable, so my
dull wits can grasp whatever it is that has so upset you, perhaps I'll
listen."

Gerry gave her man a smoky, heavy-lidded glance, smiled, and made room
for him on the Plastair.

"It's this fellow Dacres," she began. "He came around the other day
with a business proposition. Said he wanted to use _The Ark_ to rescue
his brother whose expedition has apparently cracked up on Triton. He
offered to finance the whole thing, with me furnishing the regular
crew. He would simply be a passenger. Naturally, I turned him down.
Gerry Carlyle does not run a taxi service.

"Triton, eh?" Strike grunted. "Neptune's only satellite. And with
a very nasty reputation. Isn't that the place that's never been
explored?"

"That's the place, all right. Two or three expeditions tried it. None
ever returned."

"Oh, yeah. I remember reading about that. They call it the 'siren
satellite.' Very dramatic. And also a very long way from here. Your pal
Dacres must be well off to be able to afford such a jaunt."

Gerry tossed her blond hair.

"He's no pal of mine!" she said, hotly. "Wait till you hear what he
did! He's blackmailing me!"

"Ah?"

"He's gone to all the papers and telefilm services and spread the story
that I refused to rescue Dacres' brother because the rumors about
Triton have scared me off. How do you like that?"

       *       *       *       *       *

She leaned over, snapped the telenews switch, and pointed to the
wall-screen. A headline flashed on.

                   GERRY CARLYLE SPURNS RESCUE PLEA!

Angrily, Gerry spun a dial to reveal a second lead.

         QUEEN OF HUNTRESSES SHIES AWAY FROM TRITON CHALLENGE!

    Miss Gerry Carlyle, the Catch-'em-Alive girl renowned the world
    over for her adventures while raiding the Solar System for weird
    monsters, today rejected the plea of Lawrence Dacres that she put
    her spaceship, _The Ark_, at his disposal for the rescue of his
    brother, believed lost on Triton.

    Mr. Dacres alleges that fear of unknown forces upon the lonely,
    unexplored satellite of Neptune prompted the refusal.

    It is true that Triton's record of being the grave of more than one
    ill-fated expedition is cause enough to make anyone wary. But if,
    as is asserted, something has been discovered at last which gives
    pause to the redoubtable Miss Carlyle, then man, indeed, bites dog.

Gerry's furious fingers again moved, and a third line of heavy type
declared:

              SWEETHEART OF SPACE SHUNS SIREN SATELLITE!

Strike sniggered. Gerry interrupted.

"I had a few words with the editor who dreamed that one up," she said
with quietly vicious satisfaction. "He is now resting in a sanitarium."

Strike sighed.

"I can see what an awkward position it puts you in," he admitted. "The
Dacres fellow's already tried the case in the press and found you
guilty of something or other."

He rose, walked around behind Gerry. Presently his voice came again,
musingly.

"Now let's see. Triton. Diameter, three thousand miles. Revolution,
five days, seven hours, three minutes. Stellar magnitude--"

"You sound like an encyclopedia." Gerry twisted around, trying to see.

"That's because I'm reading from an encyclopedia, I'll bet.... Stellar
magnitude at opposition, thirteen. Retrograde motion. Gravity, two
and a half times that of Earth--Oh, yeah. That's why they call it the
'siren satellite.' It lures the unwary space-traveller close, then
hauls him in with the unexpected gravity.... Mmm. Composed of matter
not native to the Solar System--hence the terrific mass. Believed to
be a wanderer from space trapped by Neptune. That would explain the
retrograde motion."

Brisk, muffled footsteps sounded along the corridor, followed by an
impatient knock on the pilot room door.

"That'll be friend Dacres now." Gerry grimaced. "Come in!"

Dacres made his entrance. He was not self-important, but he was
imposing, and whenever he entered a room he would inevitably command
attention. He was tall, slender in the manner of a rapier, and blond.
He bowed stiffly.

"Good morning, Miss Carlyle," he said.

Gerry almost expected to hear his heels click. She introduced the two
men, mentally compared them, as all women do.

"So you've come to apologize for your insufferable conduct?" she said
then.

"I've come to see if you have reconsidered your unfriendly and
uncooperative attitude," he amended.

Gerry began to incandesce.

"Why, you--you--" she could scarcely contain herself. "You deliberately
spread lies and false insinuations through the press, making me a
laughing-stock, blasting my reputation, impugning my courage! And now
you have the crust to pretend that I'm in the wrong for not throwing my
whole organization into the lap of every would-be joyrider who comes
along! You're nothing but a blackmailer!"

Dacres refused to be stampeded.

"Sorry to exert pressure on you in such fashion, Miss Carlyle," he
said, unperturbed. "As you imply, however, I have no scruples. None, at
least, when my brother's life is at stake."

Gerry found it hard to answer that one. She had tried unsuccessfully to
answer it ever since Dacres had first spoken to her. The blond man knew
this, and pursued his advantage.

"While we argue here," he pointed out, "my brother and his crew may be
dying--slowly being crushed flat by the terrible gravity. He weighed
two hundred on Earth. Up there, he'd weigh five hundred. The human
heart simply cannot stand that kind of punishment. It'll quit."

       *       *       *       *       *

The words conjured an unpleasant picture of freezing, starving men
crawling painfully about like injured crabs, praying for quick release
from agony. Gerry winced.

"Weren't the explorers equipped with de-grav units?" she asked.

"Yes, but how long will they last? A couple of weeks at low power,
possibly. Then--" Dacres brought his palms together with slow
expressiveness. "That's why every second is precious."

Gerry felt cornered, and she glanced at Tommy Strike in an exasperated
appeal for reinforcement. But Strike was strictly neutral. If anything,
he found her predicament amusing, taking a perverse delight in seeing
her humbled by the opposite sex.

She made one last try.

"Why pick on me, Mr. Dacres?" she asked. "Why is it so essential to
have my ship, and only mine?"

"Rocket ships visiting Triton, however powerful, have so far all
cracked up. Complete safety demands the tremendous power of a
centrifugal flyer, like _The Ark_. How many such ships exist today?
A handful. And how many of those are owned by other than government
agencies? Only yours, Miss Carlyle. If you refuse me, I shall have to
try and find a lesser ship. But I'm staking a great deal on having
publicly put you into an intolerable position, so you can't afford to
turn me down."

Gerry gasped. The fellow was certainly frank about it. What's more, he
seemed to have all the answers. If she were ready to quit her romantic
and risky business and settle down, she could safely say no. But as
long as she wished to remain queen of the space-rovers, she dared not
let a single questionable act stain her record.

She looked despairingly at Strike, but he simply shrugged, grinning
faintly.

"Well, here we go again," he said.

Dacres tendered an olive branch.

"There might, of course, be some interesting alien life-forms on
Triton. After the rescue is completed, you'd be welcome to try for a
couple of specimens, if that would enable you to--er--save face."

Gerry felt her temperature climb to a new high, and she counted ten,
then stood up.

"You are insulting, Mr. Dacres," she announced. "I do not like you. The
only reason my fiancé has not knocked you down is because he feels I
sometimes think too highly of myself, and that a dressing down does me
good. However, your brother's peril and your own machinations force me
to accept your proposition. Come back in an hour with your checkbook
and your attorney. Our contract will be ready for you. We can leave at
dawn."

Dacres bowed again, very tall and ever so slightly triumphant.

"Thank you," he said. "I regret our inability to be friends but, after
all, that is unimportant. I'm sure we'll manage a successful and
uneventful voyage."

He stalked out, ramrod-stiff.

"Whew!" Strike shook himself like a big dog. "The electric potential of
this room must be terrific. Think I'll go outside and ground myself.
I've never seen a fellow so completely right every time he opens his
mouth. Most disconcerting."

And Tommy Strike gave out with a roar of accumulated laughter.

Lawrence Dacres seemed to have been in error once, however, when he
predicted a journey without incident. Just before reaching Mars, five
of _The Ark's_ crew became violently ill after dinner.

"Food poisoning," was the verdict in the Martian hospital. The men
were out of danger and would be released in two or three days, but as
_The Ark_ had left Earth with only a skeleton crew, in order to save
expense, a serious problem was now at hand. Dacres, frantic at delay
which cost him hundreds of dollars a day, suggested that he recruit
replacements at the Martian spaceport.

"We must get under way at once, Miss Carlyle," he said, "or I'll go
broke just waiting here. After all, it wasn't your key men who became
ill, just subordinates. The chief engineer, for instance, is all right.
He could get along with new men for just this one trip."

It was true. On a routine journey such as this, Gerry had no need of
the special qualifications and training which made those sick men
expert hunters, trappers, and zoologists, as well as engineers. Any
good mechanics could replace them.

So she agreed. But she couldn't help feeling that, conceived in anger
and already stricken with misfortune, the expedition was ill-starred.




                              CHAPTER II

                          _Intrigue in Space_


It was Tommy Strike who, several hours out from Mars, stumbled upon
the extraordinary and amusing scene which suggested that the journey
was indeed fated to be anything but routine. Glancing in through a
half-open door in the crew's quarters, he observed a man, a total
stranger, going through weird antics. The newcomer was holding his head
very gingerly between his hands, as if it were about to explode, and
walking around the small but comfortable room with awkwardly high steps.

The man glared at himself in the mirror, and Strike grinned at the
homely reflection the man saw. It was epitome of the battered,
broken-down boxer--flat nose, lumpy cheeks, scar tissue under the
brows, cauliflower ears.

The man with the clownish face now staggered to a porthole to look out.
Then he reeled back with a stricken, bewildered expression. He groaned
piteously, obviously in the grip of a hangover to end all hangovers.

Strike leaned quietly against the door jamb, to watch. Gradually, both
he and the broken-down pugilist became aware of voices in the next
room, voices hushed but intense. The ex-bruiser wobbled over to the
door and cocked his tin ear.

"Monk, you fool!" came the voice. "How the devil did that tramp get
aboard?"

There was a shuffle of feet.

"Boss, I swear I dunno," came the conciliatory reply. "We didn't expect
you right away, so we was havin' ourselves a time."

"A drunken carousal, you mean?"

"Okay, have it your way. Anyhow, when your message came, we headed
for the spaceport, but everything was pretty happy, see, an' this
fellow must have got sort of attached to the party, an'--" Monk's voice
trailed away. "As a matter of fact, I don't much remember exactly what
did happen."

"So when you checked in, seven souse-pots instead of six, no one
thought anything of it. Beautiful!" The invisible speaker was very
bitter. "Well, the tramp's aboard now, and the damage is done. I
suppose I should have met you myself. Question is--"

The lumpy-faced man suddenly shoved open the door. It was like a French
farce, with Strike able to see all that happened, while remaining
unobserved. Six tough-fisted mechanics, the men recruited by Dacres in
the emergency, were looking very ill at ease as Dacres tongue-lashed
them. Strike frowned slightly. He would have to remind the tall, blond
Dacres that it was the captain alone who had the right to discipline
the men.

Then the unidentified, clown-faced man spoke.

"You!" he snapped out. "Who're you?"

"Lawrence Dacres, and keep a civil tongue in your head."

"You shanghaied me aboard this here spaceship, Dacres, an' I demand you
turn around and take me back to Mars pronto. Or else!"

There was a round of mirth, and Strike moved nearer to watch the rest
of the scene. The strange, lumpy-faced man purpled.

"I mean it," he declared. "D'you know who I am?"

"Don't tell us. Let us guess." The heavy irony came from Monk, the man
who had been trying to explain how the extra person had come aboard at
the spaceport. He had a receding forehead and long, hairy arms.

"I'm Kid McCray, the Martian middleweight champion, that's who!"

The crewmen dissolved into the helpless hilarity of complete disbelief,
and Strike fought back his own urge to laugh. Middleweight McCray
ranted and stormed, trying to convince them of his sincerity. It was
useless. In fury, he doubled his fists and sprang at Dacres.

However, Strike decided, whatever ring experience McCray might have had
didn't include the trickiness of moving out in space. His lunge carried
him well off the floor. He sailed, floundering, like a man in deep
water, awkward and off balance. In this defenseless position, the blond
man's punch caught him flush on the jaw and slammed him head-first
against the steel wall.

McCray took a full count.

"Nobody can do this to me," he muttered dizzily, and was still shaky
when he managed to stand again.

The crew men were weeping in their joy.

"The champ's off form today!" the guffawing Monk yelled. "He ain't so
good in the light gravity!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Strike thought it about time to intervene, so he stepped into the room.
There was a sudden silence of frozen attitudes and wary eyes.

"Oh, Captain Strike," Dacres said, relaxing. "Glad you're here. If you
overheard what's been going on, you realize that we have a stowaway
aboard with some peculiar notions in his head."

"I understand, Dacres." Strike tried to look sternly at the groggy,
clown-faced McCray. "Just how _did_ you get on the ship?"

"Well,"--McCray screwed up his face in thought--"Well, there was the
fight, see? First championship bout ever held on Mars. I win by a
kayo in the eleventh. Then we celebrated--parties, taverns, lots o'
girls.... Then I don't remember nothin' till a few minutes ago." He
looked very baffled. "Doncha believe me?"

Obviously, the various celebrants had somehow formed into one big party
during the gay evening. It sounded like a fight night. There probably
had been a fight. But as for a man with a face like McCray's being a
champion--

Strike and Dacres exchanged sad smiles, and Dacres made a cranking
motion with one finger to his temple.

"Perhaps a few weeks' work will straighten out your thinking, McCray,"
Strike said. "We'll go and see my partner, and you'd better act
sensibly because technically you're subject to severe penalties. Here.
Slip these on."

He kicked over a pair of gravity clogs--thick metal plates containing
a power unit to adjust the wearer against differing gravities. Straps
fastened them to the feet. Everyone else was wearing them. They enabled
scrambled-ears McCray to follow Strike and Dacres up the long corridor
to the elevator leading to the flight deck.

Tommy Strike noted with satisfaction McCray's reaction, as the
pugilist's eyes fell on the glorious, copper-blond beauty of the ship's
famous mistress.

"Holy Smoke!" McCray goggled at her. "You're Gerry Carlyle!"

In the questioning silence that followed, Strike explained.

"We have a stowaway, Gerry," he said. "Unintentional. Says he came
aboard by mistake in a moment of alcoholic aberration. No one of
us realized he wasn't one of the new men. He seems to be a bit
punch-drunk."

The uninvited guest snapped out of it with a roar.

"Punch-drunk?" he yelled. "Listen, you! I'm Kid McCray, middleweight
champ of Mars! I got influence, an' if you don't take me back to Mars
right now, there'll be trouble!"

Strike, Dacres, and Gerry Carlyle doubled over with laughter.

"O-oh-h!" gasped the girl. "Those Martian liquors! I've heard they
frequently bring on delusions of grandeur!"

However cool a ringman McCray might once have been, he had now had too
much. He advanced vengefully upon Strike, his every thought written
plainly on his battered face. Remembering his earlier experience, the
fighter shuffled forward with determined caution. As a result, Strike
found him practically a sitting duck.

Being in the light-heavyweight class, Strike promptly accepted the
challenge and clubbed the intruder with a whistling right cross.

McCray spun round, fought clumsily for balance on the gravity clogs,
then crashed, bouncing his head off the binnacle. "This just ain't
possible," he muttered faintly.

"The 'champ,'" Dacres declared in an amused voice, "isn't so good with
the foot-work this morning."

"Overtrained, perhaps," offered Gerry.

There was more gaiety.

"Well, we can't put back to Mars, of course," Strike said then. "Better
put him to work."

Actually, Strike was not at all sorry. McCray was probably in for some
amusingly rough and humiliating hours. He would be assigned to the
most menial tasks. He would be referred to derisively as "the Champ."
He would have to learn that Space Law dealt ruthlessly with men with
too-ready fists. But _The Ark_ was on a grim mission, and Strike felt
sure that McCray, once he found his place, would be good for many
tension-relieving laughs....

       *       *       *       *       *

Kid McCray was surprisingly persistent, however. Two days later, he
button-holed Strike and urged him to radio Mars, on the theory that if
there were a missing middleweight champion, that might prove his story.

"Too bad you didn't think of that before," Strike smothered a grin and
pointed out solemnly. "We're already too far from Mars for the limited
capacity of our ship's radio."

No whit discouraged, McCray again petitioned the captain next day. He
had learned the story of Dacres' brother, and the peculiar, untimely
illness which had reduced the crew of _The Ark_.

"Don't that seem kinda odd, Captain?" insisted McCray, striving to look
mysterious. "An' could anybody be so lucky as to find a half-dozen
number-one mechanics on Mars at a moment's notice? Maybe we better turn
back right now!"

Strike got endless amusement from the little battles of wits in which
McCray clumsily offered varied reasons for returning to Mars. But the
ex-fighter's point about Dacres' substitute crewmen stuck in his mind.
He remembered, too, the conversation he'd overheard the day McCray had
awakened on the ship. The exact words escaped him, but hadn't Dacres
been speaking as if to long-time acquaintances? The sudden silence, the
suspicious looks when he shoved open the door and entered the room--had
they meant anything?

Feeling very foolish, Strike dropped down to talk with Baumstark, the
chief engineer, and was quickly reassured.

"It's working out fine, sir," the engineer said. "The new fellows are
really topnotch engine men, especially that Monk. Not much to look at,
but always asking questions. Probably could run the ship himself right
now!"

After that, even McCray seemed to give up trying, tending strictly to
business, as the mighty ship fled at astronomical speeds through the
vast remoteness of the spaceways. Days drifted into weeks. One by one,
the major planets' orbits passed astern. Then, another of those queerly
unrelated incidents ruffled the surface of the quiet routine.

McCray was involved, as usual. On an inspection tour, Strike came
upon him sprawled on the floor of one of the cabins, nursing a welt
above his ear. Standing over him was Monk, a wrench in one hand and a
wicked-looking proton pistol in the other.

"Nosey!" Monk was shouting. "Buttinsky! What's the idea?"

McCray explained fuzzily that he had just been searching for a tool in
Monk's space-bag, and accidentally found the gun.

"Well, next time ask me first," Monk cried. "Besides, finding I got a
gun is nothin' to get excited about. We're goin' to a strange world,
an' it might be dangerous, see? We might need some weapons."

Tommy Strike chose that moment to make his presence known. He lashed
Monk verbally, took the gun from him.

"It's the officers' duty to take care of the arsenal aboard this ship.
No weapons are ever permitted in the men's quarters."

Monk scuffed his feet, made a handsome apology, and he and McCray
went back to work. Strike watched them pensively, recalling past
events, wondering if there were a pattern. On impulse, he searched
the belongings of Dacres' recruits, and found exactly nothing
out-of-the-way. Sheepishly, he returned to the flight deck, resolved
not to bother Gerry with his unworthy suspicions.

That proved a mistake. The mystery came to a sudden and explosive head
before the next changing of the watch. They were only one day out from
Triton, and Gerry was making telescopic observations of the satellite.

"I've checked Triton's rotational speed, Tommy," she said. "It spins
once around on its axis every forty-five minutes or so. Really rolling
down this cosmic bowling alley, eh?"

Those were the most important words Strike had ever heard in his life,
though he did not realize it then. Instead, he made idle conversation.

"Yes," he said, "but there's precedent for it. Look at
Jupiter--twenty-nine times as large as this marble, counting its
atmospheric envelope, rotating once in a bit over nine hours."

As if the words were a cue, the door burst open, and Dacres, Monk, and
the other substitute crewmen shouldered through. All were armed. In a
split second, the entire plot, portions of which had been tantalizing
Strike for days, was clear.

"So," said Gerry Carlyle, "it's mutiny."

[Illustration: "So," said Gerry Carlyle, "it's mutiny."]

Dacres nodded, smiling, and interpreted correctly her quick glance down
the hall.

"It's no use," he said. "All the others have been bound and gagged."




                              CHAPTER III

                       _Murder With Mathematics_


Half of Strike's mind boiled with astonishment and self-revilement.
It was his fault. He should have known. McCray had practically proved
this was coming, but he had insisted on laughing the fellow off as a
"character." He had been criminally blind and stupid.

Yet the other part of his brain admitted his actions had only been
natural, that no one in his senses would have credited Dacres with the
foolhardy idea of stealing the most famous spaceship in the entire
System. It was just crazy.

Dark-faced with fury, Strike put this thought into words.

"Just what d'you think you're going to do, anyhow?"

"We're taking over _The Ark_, camouflaging it, and using it for a short
career of piracy among the Outer Planets. Perhaps a half-dozen quick
strikes, then we all retire wealthy before the law even starts to hunt."

There it was, beautifully simple, grim, dastardly.

"And what about us?" asked the girl.

"So sorry." Dacres smiled hypocritically. "You and your crew will be
packed into a lifeboat and marooned on Triton. Another regrettable
accident to another would-be explorer of the 'siren satellite'."

"That's murder!" Strike lashed out. "We'll die there, horribly, crushed
flat by that gravity."

Dacres warned Strike back with his gun.

"Tut, tut, Captain," he said. "You didn't think we could afford to
leave you alive, to carry tales to any possible rescue parties, did
you? It's all part of my scheme. Everything must appear accidental."

Strike looked at his fiancée, and was never prouder of her. If the
mutineers expected tears or hysteria, they must have been shocked at
the hardy defiance of her next remark.

"You're a fool, Dacres, if you don't kill us all right now."

There was implacable hate in the girl's voice, but Dacres merely
grinned.

"Oh, no, Miss Carlyle," he said. "No shooting. No hint of foul play. I
see what's in your mind. You foresee furious rescue operations when
_The Ark_ becomes overdue. Naturally, Triton will be searched, and you
intend to leave an explanatory message where it will be easily found.

"Spare yourself the trouble, please. We'll give you a few days--it'd
be interesting to see just how long the human heart can endure
such strain--then visit your little tomb on Triton. Any messages
subsequently found will be written by me, neatly explaining the
destruction of _The Ark_ in space, with no suggestion of criminal
action."

Hopelessness was a knot in Strike's stomach. The plot was really
ironclad. But even now Gerry seemed unshaken. She looked around the
group of thieves and murderers as if memorizing their faces for future
reference. Then she saw McCray, hiding shamefacedly in the rear. Her
eyebrows raised.

"You, too, 'Champ'? I'm disappointed."

The pugilist crimsoned.

"The 'Champ' had a silly idea that he could remain neutral in this
game," Dacres explained easily. "We can use a muscular man, so we gave
him his choice. He chose to live, with us."

Gerry nodded.

"Just for curiosity," she said, "do you really have a brother?"

"No. The lost expedition was just window-dressing. Rather nicely done,
I thought. We actually arranged for a ship to leave Mars a few months
ago under my charter, in case you checked on it."

"Swine!" Gerry Carlyle spat the word, and swung her right fist in a
haymaker that caromed off Dacres' nose. Holstering his gun, he wiped
his watering eyes and started for Gerry.

At that instant, something happened to McCray. It seemed to Strike that
the man's natural instincts as a fighter and sportsman got tangled up
with his admiration for a beautiful girl. At any rate, moving expertly
now on his clogs, he slid before Gerry.

"Look, lady," he said. "Always hit straight, not roundhouse. Like this."

Then he cracked the blond man a beautiful punch, flush on the button.
Dacres fell, out cold. Instantly, Strike whirled on Monk, who was about
to draw a bead.

"Remember what he said!" he shouted. "No gunplay!"

For heart-stopping moments, sudden death trembled in the air, as Monk
squinted murderously at McCray down the glittering rod of his proton
pistol. McCray drew breath again only when Monk drew back with a harsh
laugh.

"Okay, bum," Monk said. "It's only a matter o' hours, anyways. Seein'
as how you decided to play with the losin' team!"

Strike almost smiled when he saw McCray's transparent face register
appalled realization. Kid McCray gulped, looked anxiously at Gerry
Carlyle, and then grinned broadly as she winked at him in wordless
thanks.

"Oh, well," he said, strutting ever so faintly, "it ain't _when_ a
fellow goes, it's _how_ he goes!"

It was plain Kid McCray considered himself in distinguished company.

       *       *       *       *       *

Tommy Strike examined his sweaty palms, marked where the nails had dug
in when he fought down the suicidal impulse to fling himself at Dacres'
piratical crew. Then he looked around the cramped confines of the tiny
lifeboat.

Though intended for six, nine persons were packed in the craft. Save
for the slap-happy boxer, McCray, whose heart was certainly bigger than
his brains, all the occupants were intimate friends, welded together in
a unit by adventure and danger, failures and successes. Young Barrows,
Kranz, Baumstark--with all of them their proudest boast was that they
were envied members of Gerry Carlyle's entourage.

And now had come the ignominious end of the trail. After each recent
hairbreadth exploit, Strike had vowed he would wed Gerry and they
would settle down on some peaceful suburban estate. But the demons of
excitement in their blood had not been conquered. So, seemingly, the
pitcher had gone once too often to the well. Death was the end of this
adventure, sure and horrid. And Strike felt himself to blame.

The seething silence, brought on by the enormity of Dacres' daring to
lay a hand upon their beloved leader, was broken by Kranz.

"I hear the gravity down there is two-and-a-half Gs," he said. "We
might as well make a break for it right now. Go down fighting, anyhow."

Strike shrugged.

"It's no use. Dacres has--"

A sudden thought made Strike examine the fuel gauge, but though there
was enough fuel to take them to Triton, there was not nearly enough
to enable them to try a dash for the nearest outpost in the Uranian
System. He ground his teeth.

"No, that bird has thought of everything," he sighed. "I said that the
first day I talked to him. It's still true."

"Exception, please," Gerry interposed suddenly. "Mr. Dacres has
forgotten one thing--mathematics. Just take it quietly, men. Our inning
may yet come."

Tommy Strike and the others stared at her, forlorn hope fighting with
despair. He couldn't see any value in calculus when a man suddenly
found himself crushed to the ground by a weight of four hundred and
fifty pounds. It would be a task even to pick up a pencil. He was
about to argue the matter when a sudden lurch threw them all into a
tangle at one end of the little rocket-car. It was too late for debate
now--Dacres had thrown the lever catapulting the lifeboat into space.

To the tiny craft's left, and slightly above, _The Ark_, enormous and
glittering, receded with uncanny effortlessness. Below and to the
right, dollar-size in the cold blackness of interstellar space, the
Siren Satellite beckoned irresistibly.

Strike slid into the pilot's seat, for once at a loss as to what to do,
and stared at Gerry questioningly. She nodded.

"Triton," she said.

The tubes bucked with miniature thunder, as Strike deftly manipulated
the controls. It was but a three-hour journey, but it loomed as the
most frightful three hours any of them had ever dreamed of enduring.

While still an hour out from Triton, the pull of that mighty gravity
was already making itself felt. If anyone had occasion to move, he took
slow, ponderous steps. The increasing weight was endurable while lying
prone, but even so there were whimpers, as invisible but relentless
fingers seemed striving to tear loose the internal organs themselves.
Barrows was suddenly sick on the floor, and the sight promptly urged
three of the others to follow suit.

Strike wound a coil of light rope around himself as an abdominal
support. It afforded some relief, but nothing could take the terrible
strain from his heart, as it laboriously fought to pump the sluggishly
heavy blood through pinched veins. He speculated dispassionately on how
long a heart would hold up.

He glanced at Gerry. She lay with her face hidden in her arms,
breathing asthmatically. Slowly, her head raised, as if it weighed a
ton.

"Tommy," she spoke thickly, with a tongue that would not obey. "I'm
going to--pass out. Head toward--equator--"

       *       *       *       *       *

She slumped. Though Gerry was vigorous and athletic, her frame was
never intended to sustain the ordeal it was subject to now.

Strike saw the others, especially McCray, were taking it fairly well.
Most of them had endured several Gs for short moments while stunting or
test-flying, but none had ever experienced anything like this ceaseless
drag which crushed the chest and threatened to pull the very flesh away
from the bones.

Sweat blinded Strike momentarily, and with a leaden hand he wiped it
aside. Triton, pale and featureless, loomed large now, revolving with
visible motion. The crisis was at hand. The tiny lifeboat plunged with
sickening speed, and Strike fought the controls with corded muscles.
The jets blasted full in a savage battle against the gravity, and it
took all Strike's skill to keep the ship from rolling off its delicate
position atop that vital column of flame.

As the craft thundered in over the swiftly sliding terrain, only luck
averted disaster, for Strike's anchored fingers were too slow for the
exacting manipulation of a landing. The craft plowed in fast and hard,
swathed in flame, skidding with bone-racking jerks.

The lifeboat made one complete somersault and came to rest--right side
up.

The nine castaways sorted themselves out, untangled broken safety
belts, stood up, and--suddenly, the realization of a miracle dawned
upon them!

Like a bestowing of a soothing, deific benison, the grip of that
terrifying, crushing gravity was gone. Utterly gone!

They weighed no more, apparently, than they ever had on Earth!

Each gave thanks or expressed his joy in his own way, but the dominant
emotion was aptly expressed by McCray.

"Gosh!" he said. "I don't get it!"

None of the men understood the phenomenon, but a horrible suspicion was
growing in Strike's mind. He turned to stare at Gerry, who had revived
at once with no ill effects.

"You knew this was going to happen!" he said accusingly. "That's what
you meant when you babbled about Dacres and his mathematics. Why
didn't you tell us, spare us some of the mental agony?"

"Sorry," Gerry blushed faintly. "But I wasn't at all sure. It would
have been an awful disappointment if it hadn't come off."

"Never mind that. What's the angle? Out with it! How come?"

Gerry grinned in reply to this bombardment of queries.

"Patience, m'lord, and I shall demonstrate." She found pencil, paper,
and slide-rule and commenced calculating. "The key to the problem
is the fact that Triton's rotation, once every forty-five minutes,
develops a centrifugal force at the equator, the thrust of which
neutralizes the pull of its high gravity. Now suppose you weigh a
hundred and fifty pounds."

"But I weigh a hundred and eighty-three," objected Strike.

"Okay, okay. Just pretend, hunh? So you'd expect to weigh three
seventy-five here. But--" Gerry scribbled.

    weight = 150 pounds

    diam. of Triton = 3000 miles = 1.584 × 10^7 ft.

    radius of Triton = 7.92 × 10^6 ft.

    gravity = 2.5 g

    rotation 45 minutes.

    N = 1/45 = .0222 rpm

    [Greek:Omega] = 2[Greek:Pi]N/60 = .00233 rad/sec]

    m = 150/g = w/32.2 = 4.81 slugs

"A slug is actually the name of the engineering unit of mass," Gerry
interrupted herself to explain--quite unnecessarily as most of the
others were well grounded in math.

    Centrifugal Force = mr[Greek:Omega[1]]^2 = 4.81x(7.92)x(2.33)^2
    = 207 lbs.

    net weight = 2.5(150) - 207 = 375 - 207  = 168 lbs.

[Footnote 1: [Greek:Omega] is the omega symbol.

"So!" Gerry concluded triumphantly. "We weigh only a few more pounds
at the equator here than we do on Earth, despite the high gravity. The
closer we move to the poles, the more we'll weigh. Of course, I have
only a five-inch slide-rule, and the figures may be correct only to two
significant figures, but you get the idea."

"I guess we get it, all right," Strike muttered, still a bit miffed
that Gerry had kept it to herself when they had so desperately needed
a ray of hope. "So long as we maintain contact with Triton's surface,
we're safe. But the moment we lose contact--uh-uh!"

Intrigued by the thought, Barrows experimented with a little upward
jump. He promptly came down with a teeth-rattling jolt. No one ventured
to duplicate the demonstration. They were effectively held by unseen
chains.

"Say!" Strike had another idea. "Dacres will be dropping in again in
a few days to write our farewell message for us. If we can rig up a
welcome, maybe there'll be a surprise ending yet to the draymah of
'Gerry and the Pirates'."




                              CHAPTER IV

                          _A Hairy Intruder_


Tensed up as they were, having undergone terrible physical stress
under fear of impending death, the men needed that feeble joke as
an excuse to let down. They roared with laughter, as if it had been
brilliantly witty, or even the broadest slapstick gag. They repeated it
with variations and comic embroidery till they were emotionally spent,
completely relaxed.

Finally, someone made the obvious point that if they were to surprise
Dacres on his return, then they must prepare to survive the intervening
days.

Sobered, under Strike's leadership, they began to assess their
situation.

Outside, the terrain of Triton was bleakly unrelieved in the dim light,
seemingly of volcanic origin. There was an occasional tree, squat and
massive and spiny. Hoar frost coated the hollows, and a gusty wind
whistled thinly.

With quiet efficiency, the men went about their duties, thrusting
delicate instruments through the special valves, testing temperature,
pressure, analyzing the atmosphere. Strike took one look at the
thermometer and shivered.

"I don't believe it," he declared.

"Oxygen out there, all right," Kranz, working with the air sample,
announced with satisfaction. "Trace of hydrogen. Trace of water vapor."
Then after an interval, "Oh-oh. Chlorine, too. Not much, though. Be
easy to adjust the filters on our pressure suits to take care of it....
Couple of inert gases, nothing harmful." He looked up.

Gerry and Strike traded glances.

"Good as could be expected," Strike said. "Naturally the gravity would
hold a substantial atmospheric envelope. Shall we stroll about the yard
and meet the neighbors?"

They drew lots for the six space-suits, and presently the winners
poured out upon the surface of Triton like school children at recess.
McCray and Kranz promptly staggered tipsily and fell down. Strike and
the other men lurched and scrambled and finally remained upright in
very weird positions, as if leaning against a gale. They all looked
about in amazed bewilderment except Gerry, who was convulsed in
unseemly merriment.

Strike inspected the landscape, which was apparently quite flat, then
tried to understand why everyone acted as if standing on a hillside. He
borrowed an apt phrase from McCray's vocabulary.

"I don't get it," he said.

"Another item I forgot to mention," Gerry explained. "One of Triton's
more amusing properties. 'Down' is not perpendicular to the ground,
except at the poles and the equator! Evidently, you didn't land quite
at the equator, though you came close enough. The phenomenon isn't so
noticeable in the lifeboat because it's already lying at an angle.
Incidentally, a trip from the poles to the equator would be downhill
all the way!"

"Aren't you the cute one, though," Strike growled.

He thought about this strange state of affairs, and had an awful vision
of Triton slowly breaking up, with everything rolling down from its two
poles till there was nothing left but an equator, spinning solemnly
through the heavens like a runaway wheel.

To rid himself of this nightmare, he became very businesslike, dividing
the castaways into groups for a general stock-taking. Exploration of
the immediate vicinity was not encouraging. There was very little
surface moisture, and drilling for water was of course out of the
question. A kettle of melted frost, painfully gathered, proved potable,
after boiling had driven off the chlorine.

The air was breathable through filter-masks, though cold as a
knife-blade in the lungs. McCray, excited as a boy over the new
experiences, tried spitting, and was delighted to find the result
turned to icicles before reaching the ground. He abandoned his fun,
however, when his lips froze together painfully.

Food, either animal or vegetable, there seemed to be none. This worried
Strike.

"There's a lockerful of concentrates," he said, "but they won't last
nine of us too long. We can only hope friend Dacres doesn't wait too
long before returning to check on us."

His voice trailed off as he saw Gerry staring wide-eyed past him.
He turned. Thirty yards away, something new had been added to the
landscape--a five-foot high Thing covered completely with dark,
coarse hair, tapering to a blunt point from a broad base. It somewhat
resembled a blackly furry bishop, strayed from a gigantic chessboard.
The Thing stood utterly motionless in the grayness, as they watched.
Though apparently without features, it somehow gave the feeling of
watching them in intense curiosity.

"Pretend not to look at it," Gerry suggested finally.

At once, the weird-looking intruder glided swiftly forward to within
twenty yards, then froze stiffly again in its watchful attitude.
McCray's eyes were popping. He hadn't the background to take this
experience in stride.

"What is it?" he croaked. "Vegetable or mineral? D'ja see how it sort
o' glides along, sneakin' up on us? No feet! How does it work?"

"What a beautiful specimen!" Gerry sighed with professional longing.
"I really think it wants to make friends. Doesn't it remind you of an
oversize Scotty pup sitting up to beg?"

Strike snorted.

"What an imagination! Looks more to me like--"

"Watch it!" came the sudden warning.

In the discussion, they had taken their eyes from the newcomer, and it
had seized the opportunity to move in. The center of its head opened to
reveal an enormous mouth, filled with hideous, slavering, black fangs.
Emitting an eerie whistling note, the Thing rushed savagely upon the
group, in a horridly blind fury.

       *       *       *       *       *

Everyone scattered like flushed quail, and the hairy enemy, unable to
make quick turns, charged harmlessly through like a bull. Abandoning
all pretense, it turned and came sliding back in another silent, deadly
rush. Again, the castaways dodged aside.

"He has such an endearing way of showing his friendliness!" Strike
gibed at his fiancée.

But though there were elements of humor in being chased round and round
the space-boat, tiring muscles soon warned that the situation was no
joke.

"This can't go on indefinitely," Gerry finally gasped. "Someone'll
slip, or dodge a little too late. And if we retreat into the ship,
it'll just mean a siege. If that blasted Dacres had only left us a
weapon--"

She might have been a lady Aladdin, speaking the magic formula,
for the lifeboat opened and Barrows, grinning uncertainly, tossed
an improvised contraption to Strike. It consisted of two scalpels,
fastened with wires from the control panel to a three-foot metal piece
of weather-stripping ripped from the doorsill, to form a spear.

"Best we could do on short notice," Barrows apologized, then retreated
precipitately, as the shaggy, faceless nemesis charged raveningly
against the closing porte.

As the Thing reeled back from the shock, Strike deftly moved in
with his crude weapon, slashing for the abdomen. The result was so
completely devastating that Strike was dumbfounded.

The razor-sharp little knives went in as if through butter, and when
they were withdrawn, a torrent of grayish fluid spouted forth almost
endlessly, as if the strange creature were filled with the stuff to the
exclusion of any kind of organs.

Eventually, the rank flood ceased, and the enemy collapsed like an
empty glove, dead. The victory was so absolute--the weird animal had
been so utterly ferocious, animated solely by the two emotions of
cunning and hate. It had been defeated so easily--that bewilderment
took the place of triumph. Everyone gathered round Strike and his
trophy.

"Funny stuff," Kranz said, pointing to the great puddle of vital fluid,
as yet unaffected by the temperature. "Wonder what it is?"

"Must be anti-freeze," Gerry hazarded.

"Be interesting to examine the beast," Strike said slowly.

He and Kranz exchanged a long look and, by common consent, seized the
shrunken carcass and bore it into the lifeboat. They could rig up a
rough laboratory there, putter around for hours with the smelly corpse,
and be quite happy.

Kranz was a fiend for chemical analysis. He would sample the Styx as
Charon rowed him across. Gerry, whose interest in strange creatures
was confined to live ones with commercial value, shrugged it off. It
was one of the few times in her life she missed the point.

Seven times, Neptune's pale bulk popped over the horizon to make its
swift journey across the sky before Strike, smiling like a cat in a
bird-cage, invited Gerry into the lifeboat.

"Interesting beastie," he observed. "Skin as thin as paper, despite the
shaggy coat. No circulatory system. Somehow that mess of fluid takes
the place of blood--has corpuscles and things in it, too. Rudimentary
organs of some kind about where you'd expect to find eyes. In the
absence of a Latin scholar, we've named it _Apod Shaggius_--footless
and hairy. 'Shaggie' for short."

"That hardly accounts for the self-satisfied smile," Gerry said
shrewdly.

Strike grinned wider.

"We analyzed the fluid," he said. "It's a chlorinated compound, as you
might expect--basically perchlorethylene."

"And so?"

"Kranz thinks it would be easy to convert the stuff, right inside the
creature's body, into hexachlorethane, without any immediate harm. Just
a few injections."

"Now there's a brilliant experiment!" Gerry simmered exasperatedly.
"And at a time like this, marooned at the outer extremities of the
System, our days numbered! Why, for heaven's sake?"

She still did not see the point, nor did any of the others except
Kranz, and Strike found perverse delight in that fact. Gerry had kept
still about Triton's peculiar balance of centrifugal and gravitational
forces while she wasn't sure.

He, too, would have his little mystery till he knew whether his
experiment was going to pan out.

The fact was, within a few hours, or days, Dacres would be returning to
see if his murder plot had worked, and to set the stage for the rescue
parties. The castaways would have one chance--and one only--to fight
for their lives. It had to be good. And anything, however unlikely,
that might give them an edge was well worth the effort.

"Never mind why," Strike urged. "Just be a good gal and help me out.
All we need is one of these Shaggies captured alive to work on. You can
do it. There's chloroform in the medical kit, and a rope that'd make a
fine lasso. And, anyhow, surely one little old monster couldn't faze
the inimitable Gerry Carlyle!"

Gerry choked back some very unladylike words.




                               CHAPTER V

                              _Knockout_


Came the day when Tommy Strike's stomach had butterflies in it. That
was not from hunger, although rations hadn't been generous. It was the
sensation that every fighter knows as the ring lights go on, and the
house darkens, and he awaits the bell for the first round.

They were all awaiting the bell now, tense and drawn-faced, as they
hid in the darkened lifeboat, ready for a bigger, more desperate fight
than any their prizefight pal, Kid McCray, had ever engaged in. Days of
anxious waiting were over. Miles above the tricky Neptunian satellite,
hovered _The Ark_, slowly descending, quartering in geometric pattern,
as the detectors sought the smaller craft.

Were they ready for battle? Strike wondered. Some crude knives and
knuckle-dusters had been made, and there had been some excitement when
they captured one of the weird-looking hairy creatures they called
Shaggies. Strike's enthusiasm for the experiment he and Kranz had
performed on the beast had waned.

It was admittedly a longshot, though even if it didn't succeed, they
would be no worse off than before. What it all boiled down to was an
ambush. Dacres and his mob would be expecting to find nine corpses, the
result of the murderous gravity. He was due for a shock.

It would be attacking proton-pistol-armed killers almost barehanded,
but they had the advantage of stunning surprise. And the captured
Shaggie just might help. It had been "doped up," as McCray expressed
it, and turned loose when _The Ark_ had finally come into sight. Now
it stood out there, a blot on the landscape, surely one of Nature's
mistakes.

Of course, the creature would inevitably attack any moving thing,
including unwary pirates, with vigor. But whether subsequent events
would conform with theory, was in the lap of the gods. And to them,
Strike, in the intensity of his desire to rectify what he felt to be
his fault, prayed fervently.

At length the time for wondering was over, for Dacres had finally
located the wreck and was bringing _The Ark_ down in a swift plunge, to
hover lightly a few feet above the surface, balloon-like.

"They sure handle it sweet," someone muttered grudgingly.

"They ought to. They've had plenty of time to practise." That was
Baumstark.

"S-sh! They might hear us!"

Minutes ticked away, as the gangsters in The Ark made their routine
tests. Then the ship came to rest, the main porte slid open, and the
entire vicious mob stood in the big lock staring eagerly out. All wore
gravity clogs.

Strike recognized Dacres at once, taller than the others, and anger
began to seethe in his brain like an acid bath, ran like liquor through
his veins. He felt his companions stir in the grip of that emotion, as
they peered through pin-point peepholes. He could literally smell the
hate as it sweated out of their trembling bodies.

"Not yet. Not yet," Strike whispered restrainingly. "Watch."

It was an ancient movie--jerky action, but no accompanying sound.
Outside, the Shaggie was going through its familiar routine, sliding
closer and closer, as it believed itself unobserved, to the men in the
lock entrance, amazingly like an enormous friendly puppy, afraid of a
kick, but hoping for a bone.

One of the gangsters, completely taken in, snapped his fingers at the
creature invitingly. Then, inevitably following its fixed emotion-habit
pattern, the Shaggie plunged viciously into action. Its initial rush
carried it right into the air-lock.

A fearful tangle ensued.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mouths popped open in soundless cries. Faces grimaced in sudden terror.
Dodging madly about, the men fought to retreat into the main corridor
of _The Ark_.

The Shaggie's second blind, slavering rush took it right along with
them, and someone went down. There was a nasty moment before a proton
bolt blasted the Shaggie quite literally to bits, flooding the
passageway with its evil-smelling, vital fluid.

"This is it!"

Strike's voice was suddenly sharp and triumphant. A spate of grimly
vengeful men, with Kid McCray in the lead, poured from the lifeboat
and ran toward _The Ark_. Finely trained fighting men that they were,
they didn't even pause at the astounding sight that met their eyes.
From out of The Ark's open porte came billow after billow of dense
white smoke. It was as if the entire ship's interior had suddenly begun
to burn.

As the crew dashed across the short intervening space--they had
left off their pressure suits for sake of freedom of action--Strike
breathlessly explained in triumph:

"The smoke's harmless! Don't be afraid! Hexachlorethane in the Shaggie
reacts vigorously with metallic zinc in the zincal floor and forms zinc
chloride. Reaction liberates such great heat that the zinc chloride is
immediately evaporated, and a dense cloud o' white smoke is generated!"

As Strike fought for breath, he saw the man called Monk stagger out
of the blinding smoke into view, squarely in the path of the charging
McCray. Without even slowing, McCray let drive with a frightful blow, a
concentrate of days of fear and hunger and hate.

The blow caught the man squarely in the pit of the stomach, and through
a momentary thinning of the smoke, the astonished castaways saw Monk
go sailing clear through the air-lock and across the corridor to smash
sickeningly against the far wall.

The truth dawned instantly. The piratical gang had adjusted their clogs
to handle two-and-a-half Gs. Consequently, they were only flyweights
now, not having had time to discover the facts of the gravitational
situation.

With a howl of pure joy, Strike plowed after McCray into the wild
melee that surged savagely through the white murk, throwing haymakers
at everything in reach. If he hit someone who was solid, he muttered
apologies and sought a new target. If his victim vanished from sight in
the smoke from a single punch, he eagerly followed it up.

The end of the battle was a foregone conclusion. Completely surprised
and disorganized, Dacres and his gang were overwhelmed. Only half
realizing they were being attacked by men supposedly flat, frozen
corpses, and not daring to use their guns for fear of hitting their own
comrades, they were scattered, beaten senseless, and disarmed in three
incredible minutes of fighting against phantoms.

Only two escaped that first onslaught. They fled down _The Ark's_
endless corridors, firing around corners in a deadly, sniping
rear-guard action at their relentless pursuers. Strike, with the aid of
captured weapons, quickly laid out a foolproof campaign against the two
remaining pirates.

The pirates were driven to the ship's stern by constant threat of being
outflanked, as the crew of _The Ark_ infiltrated through dark side
passages and storerooms. Then, with the arsenal room in his hands,
Strike ordered anesthetic bombs broken in the ship's ventilating
system. Everyone donned masks. Presently, the two diehards were
captured as they slept soundly, faces flushed, in the galley.

The battle was over. Gerry, who had stood apart from actual combat by
Strike's insistence, rewarded the valiant victors with a kiss for each.

       *       *       *       *       *

Tommy Strike, during his tumultuous career with his world-famous
fiancée, had known some wild celebrations. But he had never witnessed
anything like the welcome that awaited them this time.

At a brief stopover on Mars for fresh food, Gerry had broken the whole
fantastic story, which had promptly been forwarded by ether-beam to
Earth in complete detail--the treacherous attempt of pirates to seize
_The Ark_ and murder its crew, the marooning, the outwitting of certain
death, the strange fight, and finally the return of Gerry Carlyle,
bringing the criminals back alive.

For the last leg of Mars-Earth run, they had an escort of police craft,
and in mid-space, an armed guard was put aboard. Privately, the crew
considered this very unnecessary, but Gerry permitted it only as part
of a hard bargain she characteristically drove--an understanding that
before Dacres was indicted, she would have first crack at his bank
account to pay for the trip to Triton, exactly as contracted for.

And now the home spaceport was in truth a sea of humanity, frothing
with white, as thousands of faces turned upward to watch the descent.
There were cheers, and speeches, and officials, and photographers, and
tele-newscasters.

Autograph-hunters broke through the police lines time and again. There
was a nasty few minutes as Dacres and his band were hustled through
the crowd to the police 'copters. And during it all, Gerry Carlyle and
Tommy Strike remained smiling, gracious and friendly. Such marked
adulation would have embarrassed any but the most poised.

Finally as the celebrants began to drift away, one of the reporters
spotted McCray standing patiently in _The Ark's_ air-lock. Instantly,
climax piled upon climax, as the man shouted:

"Hey, look! It's Kid McCray! It's the missing Martian middleweight
champ!"

Back came the crowds, the cameramen, the broadcasters. The crew of _The
Ark_ turned to McCray with jaws ludicrously agape. "You mean you really
_are_ a boxing champion?" Gerry cried.

McCray grinned self-consciously.

"I tried to tell ya. Nobody wouldn't believe me, that's all."

"Well, I'll be--!" Gerry swore a ladylike oath, to the broadcasters'
confusion, and the delight of everyone else.

Then a hundred questions showered on the little group, and bit by bit
the amazing story behind McCray's presence on _The Ark_ came out.

Darkness was approaching when the spectators, surfeited with the
excitement and surprises of the afternoon, at last gave the weary
wanderers rest.

Comparatively alone at last, _The Ark's_ crew grinned feebly at one
another. Tommy Strike had been very thoughtful since McCray's identity
was established. Now he tried to move unobtrusively away. Too late. The
erstwhile, pushed-around menial placed a firm hand on the captain's arm.

"Uh, look, Mr. Strike. There's sump'in I just gotta do. I only dropped
the duke a few times in my life, an' every time I come back to reverse
the decision. Even with Dacres an' Monk, I squared things. So you're
the only fellow in the world to stop me--remember that first day
in the pilot room?--who I ain't got even with. Doncha see? I'm the
champ. I just _have_ to reverse that decision." His eyes pleaded for
understanding.

Strike nodded resignedly.

"Matter of principle, I suppose?"

"Sure." McCray nodded eagerly. "It won't take long. Just one knockdown,
strictly friendly. You won't hardly feel it, Mr. Strike."

"Okay." Strike's fists came up, and they squared off.

McCray bobbed and weaved, bored in after the retreating Strike--and
suddenly the pugilist's feet slid into a weird tangle and he sat down
hard. He leaned forward to clutch his ankle and howled in anguish.

Strike, who hadn't landed a blow, and the amazed spectators gathered
around. McCray's ankle was visibly swelling--a bad sprain. The bout was
over. "What on earth happened?" Strike inquired.

McCray gave up groaning a moment, pointed to the moist, bruised peel
of a Martian banana, then looked around accusingly for a culprit to
blame. His glance stopped on Gerry Carlyle, whose cheeks were bulging
as she chewed heroically. She gulped it down.

Breathless, she raised her fiancé's arm.

"The winnah," she cried, "and still champeen--Tommy Strike!"

Hand in hand, they ran laughing away into the darkness, while Kid
McCray beat the tarmac in futile exasperation.

"Aw, wait a minute," he wailed. "You just can't do this to me!"